“I hadn't ever realized it until that moment that I created PDXLAN to be the thing that I wanted as a kid and didn't have. It was a place where I fit in and I wasn't bullied… where people have common interests… and we have fun together.” — Matt Conwell
Matt Conwell never imagined that a homework assignment would change his life.
Tasked with creating a fictitious business plan in graduate school, Conwell cooked up a large-scale local area network (LAN) party, where gamers would come together over several days to play multiplayer video games in the same physical location. It sounded absurd to some, but he knew how much he would look forward to such an experience—and that he was anything but alone.
“It was only supposed to be fake,” he tells me in our interview, recounting the origin of PDXLAN, the bi-annual social gaming event he started in 2002. The event brings together over a thousand PC gamers who bring their computers to play video games with one another for four days while raising money for charity.
Conwell fell in love with LAN parties, at least on smaller scales, growing up. As a kid, he faced bullying and, being an only child, often felt like a loner. “Any friends I wanted to have, I had to work really hard to make,” he recalls. Drawn to computers and video games, he eventually discovered a shared passion with others. His first late-night LAN party, held in the computer science lab of George Fox University with four other kids, was one of his favorite teenage memories. It marked the beginning of the community he’d always longed for. Despite this, he never imagined organizing his own LAN parties, let alone building a career around them—until that fateful homework assignment.
“It wasn’t supposed to be real,” he says. “But I was so passionate about the idea that I decided to make it happen. I was like, ‘This sounds fun. This sounds better than going to a corporate job all my life.’”
“And I never thought,” he adds, “that I’d be doing it for 20 years!”
Before grad school, Conwell thought he might become a youth pastor. For the first two years of college, his classes were all related to theology. But during this time, he met his wife, Jennifer, who encouraged him to follow his heart.
“While we were dating, she told me, ‘Do what you love. Just do what you’re passionate about. Don’t subscribe to what you think you have to do.’”
Over and over, Conwell mentioned just how much his wife’s support was instrumental in his journey. It reminds me just how important it is to surround ourselves with people who believe in and encourage our passions. When we have the support of a significant other, loved one, or mentor, it becomes much easier to take risks and pursue what truly makes us happy.
Conwell took her advice to heart, realizing that his real passion was in computers. So he left Bible school and pursued an undergraduate degree in computer science. There, he became fascinated by the business and marketing aspect of computers.
“I realized that there was a gap between people who could speak marketing, people who could speak business, and people who could speak geek,” he says. Conwell followed the line of his passions to graduate school, which is where he got the homework assignment that altered the course of his life.
This highlights another recurring theme I’ve noticed in so many of the On Fire profiles: when we follow our heart, unexpected opportunities often emerge, even if we can’t see them on the front end. Pursuing what we love can open doors we never anticipated and lead to life-changing experiences.
At the time, most LAN parties were small with no more than 20 people in a garage. But Conwell dreamed up something bigger. “I had the bright idea to aim for 500 people right out of the gate,” he says. “With no experience.”
Conwell started by gathering people to help him—a key part of any big dream. He began with a 20-person volunteer staff. “I had to get 20 people to help me run this thing,” he recalls. “And those 20 people had to be geeks.” From the beginning, Conwell knew he wanted to make the event something where everyone felt included, especially since he recalls the typical gaming culture around the early 2000s as toxic and unwelcoming.
They began by chipping away at the logistics necessary to make an event of this size happen. They started with a location—back then, PDXLAN was held at the Holiday Inn at the Portland Airport, which Conwell describes as “the most janky hotel room you will ever see.”
The hardest part, he says, was getting sponsors. “I had to write [them] and say, ‘Hey, will you give me free stuff for my LAN party that I’m doing? And we’ll put your logo on the big screen.’” He would trade product for exposure.
Finally, there was the task of finding people to attend the event. Conwell used his love of marketing and gathering like-minded people to sell tickets: “There was no social media at the time,” he recalls, but I used social connections a lot.”
He asked everyone he knew: “Do you like LAN parties? Great! Do you know 15 friends that like LAN parties too?” Before long, the connections multiplied, and they ended up with 487 people at their first event. It’s the only event in PDXLAN history that didn’t sell out, and Conwell still regrets not filling the 13 seats to this day.
Still, the event was a resounding success: people were having such a good time that midway through it, attendees started asking when the next event would be. “We weren’t prepared for that,” he says. But Conwell and his team didn’t let the opportunity slip by. They worked with the hotel to secure a spot for another future event, announcing ticket sales to happy attendees—they sold out within minutes.
“That’s something I would end up doing every single event,” he says. “There’s a marketing reason for that: they’re a captive audience. They’re having a good time. It’s like, ‘Don’t you want to come and have a good time next time, too?’”
So what exactly happens at a PDXLAN event? Since I’ve never been, I ask Conwell to describe the experience.
“6:00 pm is when the attendees start coming in,” he says. “Watching them come in is kind of fun. Some people bring their own rolling chair and have their computer tower stacked on there with their monitor.”
Many of those computers are decked out — some are transparent with glowing parts inside, others are decorated in neon lights, accompanied by glowing keyboards. Some have life size memorabilia of their player’s favorite game displayed above their mini-fridge sized computer towers.
As the screens light up with attendees’ favorite games like Hell Divers 2, Rocket League, and Call of Duty, cheers and rounds of applause echo through the room. Attendees high-five each other, exchanging excited chatter and discussing strategies. For the next four days, attendees will immerse themselves in their favorite worlds, surrounded by people who share their passion.
PDXLAN events are four days long and run for 18 hours a day. “We don’t do 24 hours a day anymore,” he says, laughing. “We stopped doing that in our twenties.” This break between 3 and 9 a.m. serves two important purposes: it gives the staff a chance to catch a few hours of sleep and also forces the attendees to go somewhere and (hopefully) shower.
Throughout the event, there are lots of activities. At the most recent event in April, Conwell tells me they had four tournaments, 12 contests, and a series of scheduled gaming sessions known as 'games of the hours,' where a different game was featured each hour.
A favorite part of the event is the charity raffle, which has become a big part of PDXLAN ever since Conwell and his wife decided to make charity a big focus 10 years into running the event (the tagline on their website reads “Have fun. Frag hard. Give back.”). At each event, the Conwells choose a charity of their choice — the most recent one was Gamers Outreach, an organization that provides gaming kiosks to kids in hospitals — and attendees contribute money for a chance to be entered in the raffle.
“We have amazing prizes in the charity raffle,” Conwell says, like complete gaming desktops, high-end gaming laptops, NVIDIA graphics cards, and Intel gaming CPUs. “Everyone walks by the table, and they look at the prizes and they just sit there and talk about them with their friends. They’re like, ‘Oh my god, I want to win that so bad.’ They get really excited about winning things.”
“It’s like camp,” he adds. “That’s how I would define it. If you’ve ever been to a camp and you have that camp feeling… that’s the feeling that you get at PDXLAN.”
Conwell has created the camp-like experience he would have wanted when he was younger. He’s worked hard to create a welcoming atmosphere where everyone feels included and has fun—including multigenerations of game-lovers.
“There’s one guy who has been coming for 10-15 years,” Conwell says. “I knew he had kids, but I didn’t know how old they were. This event, though, he brought her for the first time. She’s nine years old, and he’s basically introducing her to PDXLAN. So she’s coming with her dad and they’re gaming together for the weekend.
“I loved that,” he says, adding that ten to twenty percent of attendees are now parents and their children gaming together. “To know that parents trust PDXLAN enough to know that it’s a safe environment to bring a child to… it’s so cool. I mean, I would have killed as a kid to be like, ‘Okay, dad. Let’s go to a gaming convention and we’re going to play video games all weekend together.’ That would have just been like the coolest thing ever.”
But it was during a time when the entire community worked together to replace the expensive computer parts of three attendees whose PCs blew during a power spike that the reality of all he’d created truly hit him. “It was at that moment I realized, ‘Holy crap, this community is on fire,’” he recounts. “They're being the community that I wanted them to be. It was so cool to see them just giving. That's what I love about them the most.”
PDXLAN just wrapped up their 89th LAN party. At a recent event, while on stage, Conwell had another aha moment: “I hadn't ever realized it until I was on stage at that moment was that I created PDXLAN to be the thing that I wanted as a kid and didn't have. It was a place where I fit in and I wasn't bullied. It was a place where people have common interests… and we have fun together.
“It's surreal,” he adds. “I don't believe it sometimes.”
It’s clear that Conwell has not just created a place that fills the void he felt as a kid—but provides a sense of belonging and joy for kids of all ages.
Takeaways
Here is one big thing I learned this week about passion, one exercise you can do to stoke your own inner fire, and one aspect of Conwell’s intense enthusiasm that rubbed off on me — and that I now want to learn more about, too!
One Lesson: Building the Community You Wish You Had When You Were a Kid
Conwell’s journey with PDXLAN shows how powerful it can be to create the community you felt you needed when you were younger. As a child, Conwell faced bullying and loneliness, but he channeled those experiences into building a welcoming and inclusive gaming community so no one else would have to feel like he did. By founding PDXLAN, he not only addressed what he felt was missing from his own childhood—but he also provided a safe and enjoyable space for gamers of all ages.
One Exercise: Mapping Your Passion Communities
Take some time to map out your current social and passion-based communities. Identify areas where you feel most supported and areas where you might need more connection. Ask yourself: What makes these communities special? How can you get more involved in them or even contribute to their growth? If you feel a lack of community, brainstorm ways to join—or like Conwell did—create communities that share your passions.
One Curiosity: The Art of Gaming PC Customization
Conwell’s story and the photos from PDXLAN piqued my interest in how gamers put their computers together. The creativity and effort that go into customizing these PCs are impressive—many are see-through with glowing neon parts and intricate designs. My curiosity led me down a wormhole into the world of custom gaming PCs, where enthusiasts often spend countless hours and significant resources to build the perfect rig. This involves selecting high-performance components, designing unique cases, and incorporating advanced cooling systems and lighting effects. So much passion!
This was so rad!